Geek of Oz

Lone Survivor, the latest film from Peter Berg (Welcome to the Jungle, Battleship), plays more like a recruitment video for the U.S Army than a film with any real depth. The film is an adaptation of former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell’s account of the 2005 Operation Red Wing, a bungled covert operation in Afghanistan that sees four U.S soldiers are grossly outnumbered by a hostile enemy. Despite the jingoistic flavour, excessive torture porn and overly simplistic script, Lone Survivor has enough thrills to scrap through with a pass mark. The film opens with a montage of actual Navy SEAL hopefuls being put through their paces. We see their fatigue, their determination, their will to be the best … yeah, yeah we get it, these aren’t normal every day soldiers. The sequence tells you all you need to know about the film: it’s an unabashed love letter to the military. The plot is kept pretty straightforward and the characters even more so. We meet each of Navy SEALs and get given a li...

The most difficult thing to do when going to watch a film based on a board game is to turn off the cynic switch. If you can do this, which is bloody hard in this instance, you get a film which is if nothing else, enjoyable. When the initial trailers came out I was convinced that this was the new Transformers film. The sound, the effects and the EXPLOSIONS had me thinking that Michael Bay had fast tracked the Autobots next outing. After seeing Battleship, I'm still thinking this is the case. Hard to port and set a heading for CHEESY ISLAND!